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Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

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11–20 of 135 posts

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#11

The quote that comes to mind when I think of the reddit community: "Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. Do not... fuck with us."

Their enforcement of the Streisand Effect is quite impressive.

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#12
post #4

Am I the only person who found Reddit generally quite unpleasant? It really is heart-warming to hear of all the good that those on Reddit have done. But I can't help feel that it's the exact same mob mentality which made me want to leave Reddit in the first place — discussions got extremely polarised very quickly and there seemed to be very little room for reasoned dialogue. The article makes it sound like a good thi…

The mob rule is extremely distasteful to watch IMHO, and it's certainly a very specific community now - liberal, pro-drugs, anti-consumerism etc etc. There's a lot of knee-jerk reactions and short-termism - outraged one day, forgotten the next.

They can get their users to 'do good' in the world, but can they make any money yet?

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#13
post #4

Am I the only person who found Reddit generally quite unpleasant? It really is heart-warming to hear of all the good that those on Reddit have done. But I can't help feel that it's the exact same mob mentality which made me want to leave Reddit in the first place — discussions got extremely polarised very quickly and there seemed to be very little room for reasoned dialogue. The article makes it sound like a good thi…

Perhaps compared to HN. But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively contrarian. While a large proportion of the up/down-voting is from petty agreement, there is still a strong enough core of "productive discussion" voting to overcome it. Especially with knee-jerk outrage stories, there's as much skepticism as I've seen in any online community (and more apparent reservation in judgment than I see in many fairly reasonable people I know personally). There's a lot of good research that gets done (when possible), and it's usually voted above the froth very quickly. Sensationalism will almost always get called out hard.

I really can't conceive of any way a forum (online or afk) with sufficient mass (with the accompanying noise, groupthink and trolling that any community of people will pick up) to accomplish the things that Reddit has/may yet could turn out any more reasonable.

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#14
post #12
post #4

Am I the only person who found Reddit generally quite unpleasant? It really is heart-warming to hear of all the good that those on Reddit have done. But I can't help feel that it's the exact same mob mentality which made me want to leave Reddit in the first place — discussions got extremely polarised very quickly and there seemed to be very little room for reasoned dialogue. The article makes it sound like a good thi…

The mob rule is extremely distasteful to watch IMHO, and it's certainly a very specific community now - liberal, pro-drugs, anti-consumerism etc etc. There's a lot of knee-jerk reactions and short-termism - outraged one day, forgotten the next. They can get their users to 'do good' in the world, but can they make any money yet?

[deleted]

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#15
post #4

Am I the only person who found Reddit generally quite unpleasant? It really is heart-warming to hear of all the good that those on Reddit have done. But I can't help feel that it's the exact same mob mentality which made me want to leave Reddit in the first place — discussions got extremely polarised very quickly and there seemed to be very little room for reasoned dialogue. The article makes it sound like a good thi…

I think it depends on the specific discussion. The front-page articles for the bigger subreddits are just too crowded to have any sort of nuance a lot of the time. But if you're interested in specific topics and are subscribed to smaller subreddits, you can have really good back-and-forth with no pitchfork-waving.

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#16
post #4

Am I the only person who found Reddit generally quite unpleasant? It really is heart-warming to hear of all the good that those on Reddit have done. But I can't help feel that it's the exact same mob mentality which made me want to leave Reddit in the first place — discussions got extremely polarised very quickly and there seemed to be very little room for reasoned dialogue. The article makes it sound like a good thi…

I feel the same way about some of the bigger subreddits, but if you spend some time to find the good ones, the site improves dramatically.

However, one unfortunate thing is that the programming subreddit isn't (in my opinion) part of the signal. It's just as full of intolerable sniping and general assume-the-worst behavior as anywhere else on the web.

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#17
post #4

Am I the only person who found Reddit generally quite unpleasant? It really is heart-warming to hear of all the good that those on Reddit have done. But I can't help feel that it's the exact same mob mentality which made me want to leave Reddit in the first place — discussions got extremely polarised very quickly and there seemed to be very little room for reasoned dialogue. The article makes it sound like a good thi…

I feel the same way about some of the bigger subreddits, but if you spend some time to find the good ones, the site improves dramatically. However, one unfortunate thing is that the programming subreddit isn't (in my opinion) part of the signal. It's just as full of intolerable sniping and general assume-the-worst behavior as anywhere else on the web.

The coding subreddit is somewhat better.

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#18
post #9
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i attribute that description to 4chan...reddit is kinda meh by comparison

By comparison of what? Reddit is not composed of typical people mentioned above? Or do all regular folk gather round to share Impact captioned cartoons of homosexual sheep riding bicycles through fields of scrotums?

reddit's retaliation might be a slap on the wrist.

4chan's retaliation would involve ripping your head off and taking a dump.

reddit is a lot more self controlled, 4 chaners fuck with people just because they can, reddit only tends to screw with the more mainstream evils

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#19
post #4

Am I the only person who found Reddit generally quite unpleasant? It really is heart-warming to hear of all the good that those on Reddit have done. But I can't help feel that it's the exact same mob mentality which made me want to leave Reddit in the first place — discussions got extremely polarised very quickly and there seemed to be very little room for reasoned dialogue. The article makes it sound like a good thi…

Perhaps compared to HN. But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively contrarian. While a large proportion of the up/down-voting is from petty agreement, there is still a strong enough core of "productive discussion" voting to overcome it. Especially with knee-jerk outrage stories, there's as much skepticism as I've seen in any o…

> But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively contrarian.

Have you been there recently? They're "contrarian" in the sense that they disagree with the non-Reddit mainstream, but they hardly respect contrarianism to their own views. I definitely would not call them "open-minded." (At least, not in the main subreddits. There are smaller, more intellectual communities within Reddit for which this is not as true.)

Re: Reddit’s Astonishing Altruism

#20
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps compared to HN. But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively contrarian. While a large proportion of the up/down-voting is from petty agreement, there is still a strong enough core of "productive discussion" voting to overcome it. Especially with knee-jerk outrage stories, there's as much skepticism as I've seen in any o…

> But I would characterize Reddit (as characterized by what's voted up into default visibility) as fairly open-minded, even compulsively contrarian. Have you been there recently? They're "contrarian" in the sense that they disagree with the non-Reddit mainstream, but they hardly respect contrarianism to their own views. I definitely would not call them "open-minded." (At least, not in the main subreddits. There are s…

> Have you been there recently?

Have you been anywhere else recently? Can you give an example of a community, of comparable magnitude, that is more open minded?

I am easy to criticize reddit, popular as it is on HN, but it is a surprising community for its large population, and as you say the smaller parts of it can be very good. One can find all the flaws with a thing that one wishes to but, in the end, if none are better it's still the best.

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